"The gunning down of three female foreign aid workers -- two of them Canadians -- and their Afghan driver a few dozen miles south of Kabul on Wednesday is the latest bloody murder to underscore the relentless deterioration in Afghan security conditions," Sarah Chayes wrote in today's Globe in her Comment Page article The perils of delivering aid
"Here in beleaguered Kandahar -- where I have lived for nearly seven years and currently run a small soap-making co-operative -- what most distressed my co-op members was the gender of the victims.
"Women?" Nurallah pronounced, aghast. "They're killing women? These people can't be Afghans. If my worst enemy -- my own personal enemy -- came into my hands, but his wife was present, I wouldn't touch him. I would let him go."
Ms. Chayes continues: "On that point, Canadians and Afghans can agree.
"Western coverage has brought to light other areas, however, where Afghan and international perceptions of this tragedy diverge . . . "
"This conflict, however, is different [from most countries where international aid agences operate.]
"Neither the forces fighting the Afghan government, nor ordinary people, make any distinction between international humanitarian workers, the Afghan government, and international military forces. All are seen as part of the same system.
"The vast majority of regular folk desire the presence of these interlocking groups . . . [but] anti-government forces are just as hostile to aid workers as they are to soldiers or government officials. The only place as dangerous to be as a NATO military convoy is a clearly marked humanitarian vehicle . . .
"But the most important constraint on aid work is the risk it poses to Afghans. Many villages in Kandahar have been refusing development assistance for several years now. They are afraid that the mere acceptance of these projects will transform their homes into targets . . .
"The Afghans do not support this so-called insurgency. They are its primary targets," Ms. Chayes concludes.
globeandmail.com is pleased that Ms. Chayes was online earlier today to take your questions on her column and on the situation on the ground in Afghanistan.
Your questions and Ms. Chayes's answers appear at the bottom of this page.
Sarah Chayes is the founder of Arghand, a soap-making co-operative in Kandahar. She is also the author of "The Punishment of Virtue: Inside Afghanistan After the Taliban".
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Jim Sheppard, Executive Editor, globeandmail.com: Welcome, Ms. Chayes, and thanks for joining us today to take questions from the readers of globeandmail.com Before we get to questions about your column in today's Globe, I wonder if you could tell us a bit more about why you have chosen to live in Kandahar for the past seven years and about your soap-making cooperative?
Sarah Chayes: I came to Kandahar first as a reporter, working for National Public Radio. I decided to stay, because I felt -- and still feel -- that what happens in Afghanistan is key to how the 21st Century is going to look.
I think there are some people -- both in the West and in the Muslim community -- who would like to see the world split apart, into irrevocably hostile blocs. Those people are objective allies. I don't want to live in that kind of world.
